


The Laws of Gravity

by lettersbyelise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blow Jobs, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Dirty Talk, Draco Malfoy makes Harry Potter question his sexuality, Drunk Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, Gay Panic, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter Has Issues, Like, M/M, Morally Grey Draco Malfoy, Original Character(s), Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Smut at every chapter, Teasing, Thief Draco Malfoy, This is me not writing smut for a year and then giving it all I got in this fic, Top Harry Potter, Work In Progress, but nothing too angsty, just lots of sex, mentions of drinking as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:35:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersbyelise/pseuds/lettersbyelise
Summary: When he runs into Draco Malfoy picking pockets at a charity gala, Harry Potter is forced to face the desires he’s avoided for years — at the risk of shattering the public image he’s so carefully curated since the war.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 17
Kudos: 106





	1. Orbit

**Author's Note:**

> Dear readers, thank you for being patient with me as I sorted out personal projects while, y'know, dealing with daily life in a pandemic and all that. I hope this fun, smutty fic finds you all well <3
> 
> Many thanks to the wonderful **[sassy_cissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassy_cissa/pseuds/sassy_cissa)** for the beta and encouragement!
> 
> This is a nearly finished WIP, and I'll be posting a chapter every other day.

“Voldermort didn't manage to kill me, but this evening very well might.”

Ron sighs. “You say that every time, Harry,” he says, “and yet you keep showing up.”

Sitting at the bar next to Harry, Ron does what he always does when Harry’s having a moan: he pushes the whisky tumbler towards Harry with a tired index finger. The glass squeaks across the polished wood of the bar, comes to a quivering stop in front of Harry. Harry takes a long, drawn-out sip. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and lifts an eyebrow at Ron. 

“Yet I keep showing up,” he says. “It’s almost like I’ve nothing better to do.”

The sarcasm, sadly, comes a bit too close to the truth. Harry has a pocket full of Galleons and Sickles he hasn’t earned. Galleons and Sickles that are waiting to be spent at the bar to support the charity of the day — in addition to the sizable donation Harry’s already made by owl post. Harry slides a glance at Ron. Unlike Harry, Ron’s taking the time to savour the taste of the eighteen-year-old single malt he’s selected for the both of them. The difference is that Ron’s _earned_ the chance to buy fancy drinks for his best friend. Hell, he even has a promotion to celebrate tonight. Commanding in his brand new Senior Auror uniform, Ron is the embodiment of serene success. By contrast, all Harry has going on for himself is an untucked shirt and black hair that seems to grow messier as years go by. Not only is Harry an idler, he’s an unkempt one at that.

But at least he intends to do something with all the money his parents and Sirius left him. He used to have that image in his head, of him sitting atop a pile of Galleons like the gold-hoarding dragon in _The Hobbit._ Of being buried there, inside his Gringotts vault, and all those riches going to waste. He’d decided then and there that if he couldn’t — wouldn’t — have a job like everyone else, he could at least put his vault to use and become a rich, recluse benefactor.

He slides his hand in his pocket, touching the warm, round, metallic shape nestled at the bottom. The golden Snitch is still safely tucked there. Harry’s never told anyone that he carries the Snitch around. He can picture his friends’ faces if they’d ever found out: Ron’s quietly worried frown, Hermione’s intense expression as she’d launch into a lecture about the dangers of clinging to the past. Harry’s old Snitch is inoffensive, anyway. The Stone that had been hidden inside is long gone. The Snitch is an empty shell, nothing but a harmless token from Harry’s teenage years now. But it’s still something that grounds Harry in reality, helps him remember what he’s been through, where he’s come from. And that, in the vapid succession of charity galas and theatre premieres and expensive dinners Harry is constantly invited to, is priceless enough to hold on to.

The grand ballroom of the Wizarding Chamber of Commerce shines bright tonight. As bright as the rows of diamonds glittering around the necks of the pretentious old bags waltzing around with their richly-dressed — and equally old — husbands. Well, not all of them are old: here and there, Harry can spot younger, perkier replacements, rivers of pearls gleaming across bouncy cleavages that leave little to the imagination. Among the crowd of benefactors, Harry spots a few journalists here and there. The page six columnist of the _Daily Prophet_ ; the intern covering charity topics at the _Magical Times_ ; and a few photographers from less reputable publications — some of which would delight in catching Harry disgrace himself tonight, one way or another. They’ve never bothered with respecting his private life in the past, have they? 

_This is why I fucking drink to make these events bearable._ Harry can’t tell if the band playing old Celestina Warbeck favourites is getting louder as the night wears on, or if he’s reached the point of a mild-headache and one too many whiskies. 

Maybe that also explains why the lights are so blinding. 

Harry blinks, rubs his eyes behind his glasses. Opens them again only to see stars flashing in the corners of his vision. _Yep. That answers it, then._ Time to lift his lazy bottom off that bar stool and move.

“Leaving so soon?” asks Hermione, who’s just slid in the spot next to Harry. She sounds more teasing than surprised.

“Just taking a walk around the place,” Harry says, casting a discreet Tempus. Only quarter past nine. God, he’s twenty-five and already getting old. 

Ron takes the stool Harry’s just vacated, a thin frown between his brows.

“That’s what you said last time,” he warns, “and then we found you asleep in the hydrangea bush outside. Thank fuck we found you before the tabloids.”

Ron’s joking, but only as a cover for real concern. Harry can read it in his eyes: Ron’s mentally calculating Harry’s alcohol-to-blood ratio and the possible itineraries Harry might take. The ones that might end up with him tipsily tripping and drowning in the Thames, for instance. 

Harry shakes his head and pats Ron’s arm. “Hey, at ease, Senior Auror Weasley,” he says. “I’m a big boy. I can keep myself safe. And you—” he gestures between Ron and Hermione, “—are here to have a good time.”

“Oh, I definitely plan to have a good time,” Hermione says with a decided grin. She links her arm with Ron’s and pulls him off the stool and towards the dancefloor. Ron follows with a resigned look, his meekness undermined by the fact that he’s already shimmying his hips to the music. A trail of flashes follows them, the journalists too busy with the two more interesting members of the Golden Trio to notice the third one making his exit.

With a sigh, Harry wanders out of the ballroom.

The marble corridors outside echo with the laughter and conversations of the night. Tonight is just one fundraising event in an endless string of fundraising events, galas, and charity balls that the Wizarding World insists on throwing at Harry, and that he never has the heart to refuse. What else can the Savior of the Wizarding World, an Auror academy drop-out sitting on a pile of money he couldn’t spend in a lifetime if he tried, do with his free time? _It’s like you’re punishing yourself for being a rich layabout,_ Hermione had once remarked when Harry had confessed these events bored him to death. _You had neither money or peace for years. You know you’re allowed to just — enjoy doing nothing for a while?_

But the truth is, Harry doesn’t know how to. Sometimes he has the feeling that if he ever unclenches his teeth — if he ever lets his guard down — all the terrible things he left behind will spring back to life. He doesn’t know how to be idle, that’s the trouble with him. And yet he can’t seem to figure how to be anything else.

 _If_ he wants to be anything else.

The charity ball tonight is in support of some noble cause or another — the specifics have already fled Harry’s brain. Wizards Without Frontiers? The Wishing Well Foundation? Tea Towels For All Elves? More likely something to do with trade, given the setting. The Chamber of Commerce is a magnificent building, and tonight it sparkles brighter than ever, fairy lights hanging from every moulding, the jaunty tunes of the band ringing through every hallway. Harry has been here many evenings before. The ostentatious splendour of the place never fails to fill him with awe while simultaneously giving him a pounding headache. Sprawling marble floors and sculpted staircases at every turn, and those ridiculous ceilings on which painted winged cherubs chase skimpily dressed maidens. _What’s the deal with half-naked girls,_ Harry wonders idly as he scales yet another sumptuous stairwell, thinking of the sea of bared decolletages swinging across the ballroom floor a few rooms away. He’s never seen the point of so much exposed flesh. He’d been fine fumbling with Ginny in the dark, back when they were still dating years ago, chasing the tail ends of heightened teenage lust. Even now, he doesn’t need to see what he’s touching to be… to be… to be _excited._ Merlin, even thinking the word makes him cringe. He’s a twenty-five year old man, after all. Isn’t it all mostly mechanical, at his age?

And _why_ is he thinking about sex right now, anyway? Not sex, exactly. Girls. Girls and the fact that he hasn’t had one in over a year, and he doesn’t even miss it. He doesn’t miss not having a girlfriend. He doesn’t even miss not snogging girls. But… but it’s weird. He misses sex, he thinks. Yes, he does. He misses being close to someone that way. The before, and the after, and not just what’s in between. He misses having someone who cares about him enough to make him feel good, and take pleasure in Harry in turn. Not that… not that it’s really been his experience of sex, so far. There had been little give-and-take, little generosity in it. His nightly romps with past girlfriends felt utilitarian and cold, somehow. They’d felt good, very briefly, but afterwards Harry was left feeling empty, dirty, used. Harry can’t wrap his head around that particular paradox of his: that he wants to be with someone, and yet isn’t actively seeking companionship, isn’t drawn to any of the girls he’s met. Not since Ginny. Maybe, if he’s entirely honest, not even since before her.

He turns a corner and finds himself standing in the entrance hallway. The sounds of the party barely filter, so far from the ballroom. It is blissfully empty of people — and what’s even better, of members of the press. Harry heaves a sigh of relief. The air is cooler here, too; it smells like night and fresh-cut flowers, and Harry is at once filled with hope and undecipherable longing. What if… what if he picked up his coat and left? What if he went for a long, wandering stroll along the streets of London, lost himself in the sprawling anonymity of the Muggle city? The cloakroom is calling to him, and so he strides towards it, determined to let his sudden yearning for freedom take the lead.

Walking into the cloakroom feels like wading into a warm current after swimming in a winter lake. Where the hallway is high-ceilinged and airy, the cloakroom is dark, stuffy, intimate. The air smells of wool and the mingled, lingering odour of perfume and oft-worn clothes. Racks and racks of coats, furs, and wizarding outer robes and cloaks muffle the noise of the ball, absorbing even the sound of Harry’s footsteps.

Yet Harry knows he’s not alone the moment he steps into the cloakroom.

Call it instinct. Call it surviving being the epicentre of the last two wizarding wars. Call it living under the Dursleys’ roof for eleven years. He knows there’s someone else hiding among the coat racks the way you know your heart is beating. On and on, automatic. The hair on his nape stands on end. He’s got half a mind to find that person, see for himself…

Then he shakes his head. He’s here to grab his coat and mind his own business. He starts to make for the rack where he knows his coat to be.

Then realises his feet are taking him in the opposite direction. Towards the place where he knows the intruder will be. You _’re the intruder, Harry,_ a voice that sounds like a suspicious mix of Ron’s and Hermione’s remarks in the back of his mind, but he shrugs it off. Harry’s in this cloakroom for a mundane, legitimate reason. He’s certain the stranger is not.

And sure enough, Harry’s right. 

Turning another coat rack, he finds a man with his hands deep inside the pockets of a mink coat. A mink coat that is decidedly a woman’s, and decidedly not his.

Because the man — Harry’s gaze travels up the tall, lean frame and up to the back of a shockingly white-blond head — is Draco Malfoy.

Harry stands there, dumbstruck, as Malfoy rummages into the pockets of someone else’s coat. Harry watches as Malfoy pulls his closed fist out of the pocket, checks the contents of his palm, and with the swift sureness of a job well done, transfers them into his own pocket and moves on to the next coat on the rack.

Harry clears his throat. “Need a hand, Malfoy?”

He half expects Malfoy to jump in fright. Half expects him to draw his wand and attack. 

Malfoy doesn’t do any of that. 

He casts a casual glance at Harry over his shoulder. 

“I think I do quite all right on my own, Potter,” he says. Harry’s name in Malfoy’s posh accent sounds like it’s always done, the short, contemptuous ‘Pottah’ that signals Malfoy’s status as much as his dislike of Harry. Harry’s longing for an anonymous walk through London by night morphs into melancholy for the old times, his early Hogwarts years where he hated Malfoy, Malfoy hated him, and everything was simple and magic and wonderful.

And now, here Malfoy is again. Picking the pockets of rich witches and wizards in the cloakroom of the Wizarding Chamber of Commerce. Harry can’t reconcile what he’s seeing with his memory of Malfoy. Granted, he’s thinking of old Malfoy — _young_ Malfoy — and god knows what the blond git has been up to since the war and the trials. Since narrowly escaping a sentence in Azkaban. 

Perfecting his pocket-picking technique, apparently.

Malfoy moves to face Harry fully. He’s tall and lean — nothing new here, he already was tall and lean back at Hogwarts, Harry thinks — but Harry now notices the shape of broad shoulders and toned arms under Malfoy’s white shirt. His blond hair catches the low candlelight; it’s longer where it falls in his eyes, shorter on the sides. Malfoy’s eyes gleam with something that’s part curiosity and part smirking malice, and something in Harry thrills. 

He strides over and grabs Malfoy’s wrist. The grip is forceful — more so than Harry intended — and Malfoy opens his hand with a grunt. Whatever he was holding clatters against the metallic foot of the rack and rolls away on the carpet. Harry catches gold and silver from the corner of his eye. Galleons. Sickles. A glinting pocket watch — platinum?

He shoves Malfoy against the line of coats.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

“What the fuck do _you_ think you’re doing?” Malfoy replies. 

Harry’s eyes go from the fallen coins to Malfoy’s face. Harry’s hands are fisted at the collar of Malfoy’s elegant shirt. Malfoy’s pale grey eyes hold the ominous calm of a sky before a storm. “What are you?” Harry demands. “A _thief?”_

Malfoy’s smirk broadens. “The very best in the world.”

“Yeah? Then I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” Harry growls, griping Malfoy’s shirt tighter. “I’m stopping you from committing an offense.” 

He’s only hit with how self-righteous he sounds when Malfoy snorts in response. “Why, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Why shouldn’t I care that you’re stealing from innocent people?” 

“Whether they’re _innocent_ remains to be seen,” Malfoy snarls, and pushes at Harry’s fists, forcing him back. Harry staggers, one hand still wound into Malfoy’s collar, as his back meets the next row of cloaks. The hangers clink like wind chimes. Harry gropes at the coats for leverage. He’s surrounded by the thick, dry, muffled smell of a dozen winter cloaks, and pressing against his front, the scent of Malfoy. Pressed cotton and fresh laundry detergent and the lingering aroma of a masculine cologne. Malfoy’s breath is hot and fast against his face, and Harry feels his senses go taut with it.

Feels the brush of Malfoy’s chest against his own, crowding him with every breath.

Feels, with a sense of horrible inevitability, his body go hard where Malfoy’s sharp hips cut into his.

Watches as Malfoy’s pupils dilate in understanding. Watches Malfoy’s pale eyebrow lift in a smirking question.

_Really, Potter?_

A burst of laughter and tipsy conversation filters through the layers of cloaks. Harry’s heart jumps in warning. Other people. Guests of the charity ball coming to collect their cloaks. 

He and Malfoy both go still.

“I—” starts Harry. Malfoy’s hand flies to his mouth, silencing him.

“Will you _shut up?”_ Malfoy hisses, a harsh exhale in Harry’s ear. Harry squirms, caught between the claustrophobic press of coats and cloaks, and the undeniable zing of pleasure slashing from his ear down his spine. Unable to shake off Malfoy’s grip, he settles for petty revenge.

He licks Malfoy’s palm, and Malfoy drops his hand with a disgusted yelp.

“Gross!”

“I thought we were supposed to keep quiet?” Harry mock-whispers back. “Oh wait, _thief,_ _you_ ’re the one with a good reason not to get caught!”

Malfoy doesn’t move out of Harry’s space, but he rubs his palm on his trousers, an affronted look on his face. The irony of it makes Harry swallow a burst of giggles. 

To think he’d thought the evening was going to be boring from start to end.

Malfoy shoves at Harry’s shoulders. Harry falls back against the coats, taking Malfoy down with him, the rack shaking under their combined weight.

“Is somebody there?” asks one of the guests. The voice sounds far away — they’re at the other end of the cloakroom. At least he doesn’t sound like a journalist, thank god.

“You’re _drunk,_ Patrick!” cackles a witch, sounding hardly more sober than her friend Patrick.

“Go away, _Patrick,”_ Malfoy mutters against Harry’s jaw. Harry snorts, and to his surprise and delight, he feels Malfoy shake with silent laughter against him. Like they’re schoolboys, hiding from the Prefects doing their rounds.

Harry pushes Malfoy off him, much more gently this time. The look that Malfoy levels on him steaks his breath. A blend of shared amusement and— _heat._

Harry gulps.It’s late. He’s had too much to drink. He’s reading too much into things.

“If I call out right now, you’re in big trouble,” he says in a strangled whisper.

Malfoy pulls back a fraction and considers Harry. 

“Not if we’re both in a position to get in trouble,” he says, and smirks.

And sinks to his knees.

So easily, so naturally. Like gravity’s suddenly too strong to resist, too strong to fight.

Malfoy has Harry’s flies open faster than Harry can react. Malfoy. On his knees. Malfoy on his knees in front of Harry, his intent unmistakable, his fingertips skimming the waistband of Harry’s pants. Harry grabs at coats, grabs at Malfoy’s shoulder, grabs at anything that might prevent him from toppling over as his knees go weak. Malfoy on his knees, about to— to blow him.

It’s every fantasy Harry has ever blocked, coming to life with an incandescent lack of warning.

But… But Harry wouldn’t— He’s not that kind of bloke. He can’t— He can’t let a man suck him off… can he? He looks down through the blur of thundering need, to the place where Malfoy’s fingers hover. Harry looks at the bulge of his cock tenting his pants, so close to Malfoy’s face… to Malfoy’s _face,_ turned up towards him, as patient and hungry as something lurking in the woods. He can’t… yet he sees the same want he feels, reflected in Malfoy’s eyes. A mirror to Harry’s desire, blending with something akin to awe. To fear. 

Harry can’t. He ca’t, but he wants.

Jesus, how he _wants._

And it’s been so long since he’s wanted anything.

Malfoy doesn’t speak, and neither does Harry. All Harry does is nod — a frightened, hesitant jerk of the chin — and Malfoy lowers Harry’s briefs with a slow grin.

Harry's had this done to him before. Ginny had wanted to try, and then a few of the girls he’d been with in the short-lived string of hookups he’d had in the wake of his breakup with Ginny. 

But Malfoy… 

Malfoy plays in a league all his own. 

Malfoy takes the tip of Harry’s cock in his mouth, giving it a few slow, flat-tongued strokes, and Harry bites his lip to avoid crying out in the hushed quiet of the cloakroom. Merlin, he could come just from this… Fucking come in Malfoy’s mouth, right here and now, and his legs shake with the effort of keeping his focus. A sound comes from Malfoy’s throat, a low, satisfied rumbling and his lips slide and stretch around Harry’s cock, slowly taking him in. Harry closes his eyes. His senses are too full, and watching Malfoy is just too much. He thinks, _Malfoy’s mouth is soft._ He thinks, _wet, hot, Jesus. Fuck._ And then Malfoy tilts his head and takes him deeper, and Harry stops thinking altogether.

Harry clutches at the coats, groping for purchase as Malfoy starts working him relentlessly. He finds the cold metal rail and grabs it, arms over his head, pants around his knees, Malfoy’s mouth on his cock. He chokes back a moan when Malfoy pulls off with teasing slowness. 

“They’re gone,” Malfoy says, voice rough. His stormy eyes never leave Harry’s. Harry’s hard cock glistens with saliva, an inch from his face. “Be as loud as you want.” He leans in and licks the leaking tip of Harry’s cock with a soft tongue. _“Please_ be as loud as you want.”

Harry obeys Malfoy. Possibly for the first time in his life, but then again when has Malfoy ever been so persuasive? When has he ever been so… hot. So — _fucking —_ good… Harry’s knuckles tighten around the coat rack as he struggles to keep his body still. Malfoy gives an eager moan when Harry’s hips shudder, and Harry gives in to the urge to thrust. He slides a hand around the back of Malfoy’s head and threads his fingers in the feathery soft hair, feeling the bob of Malfoy’s head over Harry’s cock, pushing him down on it, fucking Malfoy’s mouth.

He wonders, hazily, if he’s being rude, if he’s being rough, if Malfoy wants to slow down… just when Malfoy’s hand slithers up his thigh and cups his balls.

“Oh, Malfoy, _fuck,”_ Harry stammers, fucking harder. His fist tightens in Malfoy’s hair in warning. It has, astonishingly, the opposite effect. Malfoy’s moans turn into loud groans as he swallows Harry deeper, tighter, too hot, too much, too soon— 

Harry comes with his hand clenched around the coat rail and the other fisted in Malfoy’s hair, hips stuttering in helpless, blissful thrusts. Part of him vaguely knows he’s supposed to let go, but he keeps his hand in Malfoy’s hair and fucks until he’s fully spent, until come drips down Malfoy’s chin. When he finally relaxes his grip, Malfoy pulls back. His face is pink, his lips red and raw, a vein popping on his forehead. Harry feels like apologising. Jesus. He got… He got carried away, he should have stopped it, they shouldn’t have… He opens his mouth, but his excuses stay stuck in his throat. Malfoy wipes his chin with the back of his hand, lifts glazed eyes that still feel predatory, and— swallows. A pointed, deliberate gulp, with Malfoy’s smug half-smile as punctuation. In this moment, he looks so much like Malfoy — the version Harry’s always kept in the back of his mind, all these years — a hungry, debauched version of Malfoy, that Harry’s cock gives a treacherous lurch at the sight. Malfoy shifts on his knees, spreading his legs a bit wider. The movement draws Harry’s attention to the bulge tenting Malfoy’s elegant trousers. He lets go of Malfoy’s hair. He moves his hand around, a careful, tentative gesture. He wants to cup Malfoy’s cheek, to run his thumb across those swollen lips—

“Harry?” 

_Ron._

Harry’s head snaps up. So does Malfoy’s. Two deer frozen in headlights, only one is on his knees and the other still has his spent, softening cock out.

Shit. _Shit shit shit._ Ron’s in the cloakroom. And he doesn't sound like tipsy Ron, either; he has his Senior Auror voice on. Did he hear anything? Did he come here because he thought Harry’s disappearance was suspicious?

Harry turns a frantic, pleading gaze at Malfoy. He’s already rehearsing a promise for silence in his head, anything to keep Malfoy quiet about the whole incident, and Malfoy must see his intention written all over his face.

His half-smile widens to a sharp grin. 

“Harry? You there?”

Ron’s coming closer. Harry feels a cold rise of panic. Malfoy stands then, with a feline grace at odds with his previous posture. He takes Harry’s chin in his hand, and leans in. 

He no longer smells like an ad for expensive cologne and Italian holidays. He smells like sex, like spunk, like heated skin. 

He smells like something Harry wants to taste.

“See?” Malfoy breathes in Harry’s ear. “Trouble averted, Potter.”

He opens his palm under Harry’s nose. Inside are the eight Galleons and five Sickles previously in Harry’s pockets, and the golden Snitch that Harry’s carried around for years without anybody knowing about it.

Harry’s jaw goes slack. “You… You bastard—!”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Malfoy says in a sing-song whisper, laying his index finger on Harry’s lips. The sound of searching footsteps approaches. Any moment now, and Ron will burst in on the most damning scene Harry’s ever been a part of. “Time to be quiet now, Golden Boy. Don’t get caught, remember?”

“You’re the one who doesn’t want to get caught!” Harry hisses, unsure if they’re talking about stealing or about surprise blowjobs between old nemeses. By the amused look on Malfoy’s face, he’s heard the double-entendre too.

“Am I, though?” Malfoy licks his lips and pushes off Harry. He straightens his clothes and winks. “‘Til the next time, Potter.”

And with a spin too swift for Harry to stop him, Malfoy Disapparates with a crack.


	2. Attraction

What can Harry tell Ron?

_Hey, remember Draco Malfoy, from school? Well, I caught him stealing from the cloakroom, confronted him, and got a blowjob for my troubles._

No. Of course he can’t tell Ron that.

And it wasn’t just a blowjob. 

It was the most amazing, exhilarating, toe-curling, stars-bursting-behind-his-eyes blowjob he’s ever had.

And he can’t tell Ron that either, for several, rather obvious reasons.

One: Harry would have to explain why he didn’t try to stop a thief — a delinquent! — that he’d caught red-handed.

Two: he would have to explain why he’d let said thief suck him off instead.

Three: he would have to explain why he’d let _Draco Malfoy_ suck him off… 

And honestly, that one would open a whole can of Flobberworms Harry isn’t ready to examine too closely.

It’s been three weeks, and Harry still gets distracted by hot flashes of memories. Malfoy sinking to his knees. Malfoy’s lips stretched around the girth of Harry’s cock. His vibrating moans as Harry fucked his mouth. The mounting, overwhelming, mind-blowing pleasure that had blotted out the world around Harry. 

The flip side of these memories assails Harry with equal force and frequency: he can’t forget the whiplash of Malfoy’s Disapparation. He remembers standing dumbly in a cloakroom aisle in the aftermath, his softening dick still out, scrambling to pull his pants and trousers back on before Ron could find him. 

Harry’d managed to school his features into something that he hoped projected calm, casual confidence, although he felt sweaty-faced and guilty. Ron had appeared at the end of the aisle. He’d narrowed his eyes while he’d taken in Harry’s disheveled state. His clothes were rumpled, his shirt tails untucked, but his flies were done up, thank Merlin and Morgana. Yet Ron must have read something out of the ordinary in the scene: he’d watched Harry, lips pinched, a sure sign that ‘Senior Auror Weasley’ was mentally cataloguing the sight for future examination.

“You okay there?” Ron had burst the bubble of stricken silence after a long, uncomfortable pause.

“I was just—” Harry had gestured to the rows of coats, had finished lamely“—leaving.” His voice had come out scratchy, his breath too hard and fast. 

Ron’s frown had deepened.

“Look, mate, did something happen? Is there something you want to tell me?” he’d asked, but Harry had shaken his head with a hasty smile.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Just tired. You know what these events are like.” Ron had looked like he didn’t, but hadn’t challenged Harry on that. “A nice walk and some fresh air and I’ll be ready for bed.”

Nothing has seemed to wipe the skeptical look on Ron’s face, so Harry had skittered away and out. He’d stopped on the steps of the Chamber of Commerce for a minute, face turned towards the starless London sky, and had taken a deep breath.

It had been the most peculiar night.

And the strange feeling has followed Harry everywhere since then, like the chaffing of a rough label on an otherwise comfortable t-shirt.

The itch in the back of Harry’s mind has a name, and its name is Malfoy.

It’s always been Malfoy.

Try as he might, Harry hasn’t managed to forget about the heat and want that transpired between them in that cloakroom. He doesn’t care to find out what it means that he can’t. What it means that he let it happen in the first place. That he _wanted_ it to happen, so badly, so viscerally, that his mind had gone blank with need. He wonders what it means that Draco Malfoy was both the kindling and the match. 

If Harry closes his eyes, he can still feel the metal bite of the coat rail against his palm, the white-knuckled grip on it, the tangle of gasps and moans caught in his throat as Malfoy sucked him ruthlessly. 

So he tries to keep his eyes open. 

Daydreaming has turned into a dangerous act. The memory of the stolen dalliance hovers in the periphery of Harry’s mind, like the elephant in the room that Harry refuses to acknowledge.

Why he’d fallen so easily into Malfoy’s open arms — metaphorically speaking — is too big a question.

Retracing his steps up until the — again, metaphorical — fall is a bit easier to approach. Harry focuses on rational, reasonable questions. 

What had Malfoy been doing in the cloakroom that night? Yes, clearly, he’d picked pockets. But what for? Was it how rich kids got their kicks nowadays? (Not that Malfoy could be called a kid. He was the same age as Harry, after all. And he’d grown quite convincingly into his adult looks. He’d been all lean limbs and broad shoulders and strong jaw that night, miles away from the pointy roundness of his teenage years or the emaciated gauntness of his features at eighteen.) 

Had Malfoy… no choice but to steal? But Malfoy is old money, has always been old money. And old money doesn’t run dry… does it? Harry realizes he’s never given much thought to what had become of Malfoy after the trials. His father had been sent to Azkaban. His mother had been sentenced to five years of house arrest. And Malfoy… Malfoy had slipped through the net thanks to him being a minor at the time of the events. Thanks to him never committing evil acts of his own volition. Thanks to Harry, who’d testified for him in front of the Wizengamot.

Was that blowjob a way to repay Harry for the testimony that had saved Malfoy’s life all these years ago?

Another thought that Harry refuses to consider.

And so it goes, for three endless weeks, during which Harry loses sleep and fears losing his mind. He wanks several times a day to memories of Malfoy’s lifted eyes, to memories of a hot, wet mouth, and it’s still not enough to calm Harry down.

On Tuesday morning, three weeks after the charity gala at the Wizarding Chamber of Commerce, Harry receives a note from the director of the Royal Opera House. It’s a thank you card, acknowledging the sizable donation that Harry made to the organization a few days before, and lauding Harry’s unwavering support of the arts. It comes with two tickets to the premiere representation of Swan Lake on the next Saturday. Harry looks at the thick rectangles of paper, the aisle and seat numbers taking up the top left corner of the tickets in bold black font. The seats are in the back corner of a box, one floor above the stalls. The perfect spot to watch the show without being seen. It’s a Muggle show, so he’s unlikely to be cornered by paparazzi once he gets there. Definitely an added bonus.

Harry doesn’t know the first thing about ‘the arts.’ He hadn’t been given the opportunity to learn, had he? The Dursleys’ idea of culture had been the opening credits of ‘Big Break.’ Growing up, Dudley’d had a Walkman and hundreds of cassettes, but Harry hadn’t been allowed to so much as look at them. Hogwarts hadn’t offered art classes, unless you counted Professor Trelawney’s Divination classes as an art form. And anyway, Harry had been too busy thwarting a murderous madman to worry about his lack of education in that area. Maybe that’s why Hermione had thought The Royal Opera House was a good cause to champion. She’d always had Harry’s best interests in mind, and she’d told him the ballet was a good place to start cultivating a more sophisticated mind. Ballets had stories, music, and — Hermione had added that last detail with a wink that had made Harry cringe — nice-looking ladies in tights.

After several months of patronage, Harry doubts he’s much more knowledgeable about ballet than he was before setting foot in the Royal Opera House for the first time, but he’s certain of one thing: he’ll go to see Swan Lake alone on Saturday. Ron and Hermione have dinner plans, some anniversary or another that Harry isn’t part of; Ginny is in Romania, introducing her new boyfriend to Charlie; Luna and Neville are leading a dig near the Loch Ness. Harry doesn’t have that many close friends to begin with, and all of them are paired up — not to mention unavailable on a Saturday night.

Harry tries not to dwell on how lonely that leaves him.

That’s how he ends up in the darkened corner of an opera box on Saturday night, an empty seat next to him. 

Down on the stage, lithe women dressed in white tutus swirl around a young man with a hopeful face and a leotard that leaves nothing to the imagination. Harry wishes he could tear his eyes away from those muscled thighs and those strong, defined biceps, from the danseur’s dark, expressive eyes. But it’s been three rough, sleepless weeks for Harry. He thinks he deserves that small, guilty pleasure. So he stares at the man on the stage. He pictures his own mind like a swan, sinking in a lake of thoughts and desires that he was no control over, that he can’t explain. The danseur spins and spins, with a controlled abandon that seems to defy gravity. 

And Harry’s thoughts spin and spin, always landing back on the image of Malfoy’s grey eyes on him. There’s a hot, bright, pulsing ball of feelings lodged in Harry’s chest, and he can’t seem to shake it off, no matter what he does.

Harry is so taken by the spectacle on stage and the whirlpool of his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice the man who slides in the seat next to him. Until the stranger leans in and whispers in Harry’s ear: “I never would have pegged you as a ballet enthusiast.”

Harry startles so hard he practically falls from his seat. He knows that voice. His breath catches in his throat. 

“Malfoy,” he hisses. “What are you doing here?”

Harry turns his head. In the dimness, Malfoy’s eyes glint like a cat’s. “Why, Potter,” Malfoy says. “I’m here to enjoy the show, just like you.”

Around Harry, in the box, the other opera guests haven’t moved. They’re either too absorbed in the show to notice, or… 

Or Malfoy has put some spell on them.

“What did you do to these people?” Harry demands, jerking his chin towards the seated guests.

“Why do you assume I did something? They’re at the premiere of one of the most beautiful ballets ever played. They’ve got better things to do than pay attention to you. Believe it or not, you’re not that interesting.”

“But I’m interesting enough that you’re here, talking to me instead of watching the show.”

As if impressed by Harry’s deduction, Malfoy grins wider. His white teeth gleam, and Harry feels an involuntary thrill zinging up his spine.

“You proved yourself not to be completely dull, I suppose. This is why I’m here.”

“Are you? Or are you here to steal from unsuspecting opera guests this time?” 

“It’s not the only reason why I frequent the rich and the famous.”

“I would have thought it is, now that you’re neither.”

Malfoy lifts an eyebrow at Harry's barb. “Touché. Clearly all I do around the rich and famous these days is steal from them.” Malfoy’s eyes drop to Harry’s crotch. Harry swallows hard. “And suck their dicks on occasion.”

Malfoy’s gaze flicks back to Harry’s face then, and for a long second Harry stares back, mesmerized. He’d played his next meeting with Malfoy in his head so many times in the past weeks. Now Malfoy’s here, and so is the opportunity to do something about it.

And Harry’s mind is unhelpfully blank.

Harry shakes his head, as annoyed at Malfoy as he is at himself. He turns his attention back to the stage. The lead danseur has gone off backstage. A flock of tutu-clad ballerinas hop and twirl in time with the bracing music.

Malfoy fidgets as he settles into his seat. Harry chances a glance at him. He’s watching the ballet, hands in his lap. He’s wearing a smart, well-cut Muggle suit, the jacket open over a crisp white shirt. Malfoy forgot to button the top, and the collar is open and loose, revealing the dip of Malfoy’s throat, a hint of collarbone. Harry’s never seen anything as appealing. 

Malfoy flicks a look at Harry and catches him in the act of staring. He lifts a sardonic eyebrow. 

“Let me guess,” he says, eyes on Harry. “Some high-ranking acquaintance invited you here as a result of a recent donation, am I correct?”

While it’s absolutely true, Harry bristles at Malfoy’s condescending tone. 

“Why? Because I’m incapable of good taste on my own?”

Malfoy’s face remains set, irritatingly unreadable. “No, Potter. I assume it was a last-minute invitation, and they scrambled to find a free seat for you, because you’re here alone.”

 _I’m alone most of the time,_ Harry wants to snap, before realising how revealing that would be. How many of Harry’s secrets Malfoy seems to read so plainly, when Malfoy is still a mystery.

Malfoy sinks more comfortably in his seat, hands on the armrests, and returns his gaze to the dancers on stage. The music is as graceful as it is emotional and loud, mercifully drowning Harry's own cacophonous emotions. He and Malfoy lapse into silence for a while, watching the ballerinas swirl and sway like swans on dark waters.

Malfoy shifts slightly, and the back of his hand brushes Harry’s. It’s imperceptible, almost; a halo of warmth against Harry’s knuckles. But it’s there. Harry can feel it, and he knows, with a certainty that sends his heart racing, that Malfoy’s touch is deliberate. 

Intentional.

Harry turns his hand, palm up, fingers brushing against the edge of Malfoy’s hand. He supposes that the orchestra still plays, somewhere down the balcony; that the dancers still spin through the moves of the choreography. He can’t hear a thing over the thundering pulse in his ears.

Under the pad of his fingers, he can feel the bumps and ridges of Malfoy’s lifeline, the places where the skin is rougher or softer. Malfoy inches closer, his breath warm as he leans into Harry’s space.

“You’re a Tchaikovsky fan, I gather?” Malfoy asks.

Harry half-nods, half-shrugs. He wouldn’t call himself a fan. When it comes to culture, he often feels like he’s just begun to glimpse the tip of a very big, very daunting iceberg. So far, his self-educated approach to art has consisted in sorting it into two groups: the art that’s easy to like, and the art that requires more work from him. 

Malfoy definitely falls into the latter category.

Tchaikovsky, on the other hand, has been soft on Harry’s palate so far. 

“You’re not?” he asks Malfoy.

Malfoy huffs softly. “Tchaikovsky is so… _pedestrian._ His music sounds like someone let a rampaging hippogriff in charge of the string section. Or a troop of terminally flatulent Blast-Ended Skrewts in charge of the drums. Such a lack of subtlety.” Malfoy shudders theatrically. “I’m more of a Chopin man, myself. Forceful yet gentle. Intelligent. Virtuoso. Sophisticated…” Malfoy crooks his fingers under Harry’s palm, stroking along the lifeline. Harry forgets how to breathe. _“...Intimate.”_

“I don’t know,” Harry says in a strangled whisper. “I guess I don’t care. I like Tchaikovsky. His music just makes me… _feel_ things.”

Malfoy considers Harry’s words in silence for a while.

“That’s all that matters, Potter,” he says at last. “That’s the most important. Letting ourselves _feel…_ It’s the only thing we should aspire to in life.” 

Malfoy’s hot breath hits Harry’s cheek as he speaks, but Harry keeps looking resolutely straight ahead. Every one of his nerve endings sings with Malfoy’s attention; with the minute, purposeful movements of his fingers now twined with Harry’s on the armrest.

“Yeah, I want… to feel things,” Harry confesses quietly. “I want…”

Malfoy leans his chin on Harry’s shoulder with all the proprietary ease of a housecat. “Yes,” he breathes, like he relishes the word. “Tell me what you want, Potter.”

“I want you to suck me off again.”

The truth stumbles from Harry’s mouth before he can stop it. He can feel Malfoy’s grin against his ear.

“Got a taste for it, did you? Can’t blame you. I’ve been told I’m quite good. Have you thought about it a lot?”

 _I’ve thought of little else,_ Harry thinks. This time, thankfully, he keeps the words to himself. He just scoots his arse further down the seat, casting a nervous glance at the other guests in the darkened opera box. 

“Don’t worry about them, Potter. My concealment charms were always better than yours, even back at Hogwarts. I’ve only gotten better since then.”

“I knew you’d done something to them,” Harry chokes as he feels Malfoy’s hand move between his legs. His palm presses against Harry’s erection — fuck, god, he’s already so hard — and Malfoy gives a contented little sound from the back of his throat. Harry needs to be certain that they’re safe, before they go— before they go any further. “And— the sound?” 

“Mufflatio,” Malfoy whispers. Harry doesn’t know if it’s to cast the spell, or to tell Harry it’s already taken care of. At this point, he wouldn’t care even if the whole opera house heard his gasp. Malfoy slides from his seat and sinks to his knees, between Harry’s spread legs. In the darkness, only lit by the spotlights on the stage, his neat white-blond hair forms a halo around his head. He looks like a debauched, fallen angel, about to send Harry to hell — or, more likely, to heaven — and to do so with a ferocious grin on his face.

Harry feels more than sees the hand working his flies open, pushing the waistband of his boxers down. The warm air of the opera box feels cool on the heated skin of his aching cock.

Then Malfoy gets to work, and it’s every bit as sinfully glorious as Harry remembers. Music swells around him. A black-clad swan spins on the stage. Around them, nobody notices Harry’s soft moans and muffled gasps, Malfoy’s blond head bobbing between Harry’s parted legs. Nobody but Malfoy, who lays a hand on Harry's thigh as if to brace himself. Harry holds on to dear life on one armrest, and meets Malfoy’s unconscious touch with his other hand, twining his fingers with Malfoy’s.

Malfoy goes still then, Harry’s cock deep in his mouth, his breath strained and skirting Harry’s skin. He gives Harry’s hand a careful squeeze, and Harry sees all his want mirrored in the small gesture — the need for connection, the proof that Malfoy is as human as he is. And then Malfoy sucks him deeper on an exhale, and all of Harry’s thoughts fade to blissful white.

*

Malfoy is gone without a word in the time it takes for Harry to recover from his orgasm. He adjusts his clothing the best he can, unsure if Malfoy’s concealing spells still hold now that their caster is gone. Then he stays in the dark box, staring into the distance, the ballet coming to a close on stage. He must have missed more than half of it, between the moment Malfoy had sat next to him to the moment he’d licked his lips and risen, slithering out of the box before Harry could grab his wrist and haul him back on his lap and— 

And then what? Harry has no idea. The only thing he’s sure of is that he doesn’t want Malfoy to fade into the night like he did last time. To leave him to wrestle with all the questions this encounter raised, and none of the answers. 

He doesn’t want Malfoy to go.

He still doesn’t know what it means that he wants Malfoy that way. He’s never thought about his needs and wants and the teenage fantasies he’d kept at bay with a steady routine of blank-minded wanking. He’s never thought of himself as — Merlin forbid — _queer._

Until Malfoy barged in Harry’s life again, and upset everything Harry thought he knew about himself.

The thought is terrifying, but not as much as waiting for the ballet to end, for the lights to come back on, for Harry to walk back home, bleary-eyed and hopelessly alone.

He quietly steps out of the box while the last act of the ballet plays out. Malfoy had been right: the spectators are too entranced to pay Harry any mind. He finds himself alone in the silent corridors of the opera house. The nightly stillness sends a shiver down his spine. The place is warm, low-ceilinged and padded, Tchaikovsky’s epic chords echoing from the closed doors leading to the orchestra. The sense-memory brings Harry back to Hogwarts. He recalls the corridors past curfew, the thrill of sneaking around unnoticed. The corner of Harry’s mouth lifts in a wry little smile when he remembers he was after Malfoy half the times, even back then.

The irony isn’t lost on him.

The rational part of Harry tells him to go down the stairs, towards the exit. It’s the logical path. If Malfoy had Disapparated, Harry would have noticed the tell-tale crack. It only made sense, then, that Malfoy would have left the venue through the doors… but there’s been no sound of Disapparition. 

Something stops Harry, an intuition honed by years of observing Malfoy. _Stalking_ Malfoy, a small voice at the back of his mind reminds him. He ignores it, the same way he ignores all the inconvenient questions and feelings bubbling in his head, in his chest. There are always two ways of solving things. One is thinking, and the other is doing. Harry’s always been more fluent in the second. So he turns on his heels and climbs the stairs instead. He goes up towards the second, third, fourth floor. Here, the ceiling is even lower. The dark-painted doors lining the wall are those leading to the cheap, low-visibility seats far above the stage. Harry pads along the carpeted floors. It’s impressively quiet up here, but Harry’s heart speeds up nonetheless. He feels a waft of cool air that seems out of place in the stuffy stillness of the corridor. He hurries forth and turns a corner.

Malfoy is standing by a window, his back turned to Harry. The window is cracked open an inch, and Harry notes the smell of cigarette, the red burning tip of it dangling from Malfoy’s fingers. It turns incandescent when Malfoy brings it to his lips and inhales. 

The red glow illuminates the chiseled plane of a cheekbone, and Harry steps forward. 

“Malfoy,” he says.

Malfoy’s back tenses. Then slowly, he turns to look at Harry over his shoulder. His face is half in shadows, but the sight of his sharp face highlighted in the glow of the streetlamps outside hits Harry like a fist to the heart. 

Malfoy must see a frown on Harry’s face, because he rolls his eyes with a sigh. “Don’t look at me like that, Potter. Cigarettes after sex are my only sin nowadays.”

“You forgot kleptomania?”

“That’s not what it is.” Malfoy’s eyes are fixed on him, equally predator and prey. “Why are you so cross? I didn’t steal anything from you.”

“You haven’t given me my Snitch back.”

“Right,” Malfoy says, and Harry swears he can see a small smile forming on his lips. “I didn’t steal anything from you _this time.”_

 _Yes, you did,_ Harry wants to say. _My breath. My focus. My fucking heart._

He only knows he wants to steal something from Malfoy in return.

So he marches up to him. Malfoy watches him with a lifted eyebrow, but his expression changes as Harry comes closer. He steps backwards, his back hitting the windowpane. It’s too dark to make out the subtle ripples of emotion on Malfoy’s face, but Harry sees wariness, hesitation. Vulnerability, as he closes his fingers around Malfoy’s chin, cups his jaw. Malfoy’s skin is smooth, with just a hint of stubble underneath the pads of Harry’s fingers. He hears the catch of Malfoy’s breath; can feel his own, stuck in his throat. His face is barely an inch away from Malfoy’s, bathed in Malfoy’s warm breath. He smells of smoke, clean laundry, that masculine cologne with hints of leather and cut grass. And Harry wants… He wants… He wants things he’d always been told he shouldn’t. He wants more than Malfoy’s mouth on his cock, more than Malfoy falling to his knees to avoid Harry’s eyes, more than the hurried, impersonal taking of pleasure with no chance of giving it back. He wants to feel Malfoy — the whole of him — wants to feel that lean, hard body against him. He wants to bring Malfoy’s face to his, and so he does, with a tug of his fingers in Malfoy’s hair.

Malfoy’s eyes are grey and wide, a line forming between his brows.

“Potter…” he whispers, and Harry pulls him down and kisses him.

It’s a slow, exploring kiss. The swell of Malfoy’s lower lip is soft under Harry’s tongue; the angles of Malfoy’s hips, pressing into Harry’s, are shocking and wonderful in their maleness. For a passing second, Harry’s mind rifles through the kisses he’s shared with girls. The mental inventory crumbles to insignificance when Malfoy opens his mouth with a soft moan and lets Harry in. Harry surges in, deepening the kiss. He brings his other hand up to cup the side of Malfoy’s neck, his jaw. He tastes cigarettes and the bitter sweetness of his own come on Malfoy’s tongue, and something melts in his chest, hot and trickling. He could get to his knees for Malfoy in this moment. He could drop to his knees and free the erection he can feel straining against his own and suck Malfoy until he hears him cry— 

Malfoy pulls back, a hand on Harry’s cheek. 

“I— Potter,” he says, and there’s something akin to regret in his tone. He pushes Harry off him, so gently it almost doesn’t feel like a rebuttal. “I’ve got to go.”

Harry stares, slack-jawed. “You’ve got to go,” he repeats, feeling rejected and dumb. 

Malfoy slides out of the corner where their kiss had backed him into.

“Big day tomorrow. It’s been a pleasure.”

“It’s been my pleasure,” Harry sputters, “and _only_ mine. I wanted—”

There’s a second of hesitation in Malfoy’s eyes, but his expression sets to neutral too fast for Harry to read into it. He backs away, hands lifted in apology, a rueful smile on his kiss-pinked lips. “The pleasure’s all mine, Potter. You don’t owe me anything.”

Malfoy turns and hurtles down the narrow staircase. Harry knows better than to run after him. 

_Shame on you if you reject me once. Shame on me if you reject me twice._

He’d opened up to Malfoy. He’d let Malfoy get to his knees for him. He’d taken Malfoy’s face in his hands and kissed him like one would kiss a lover. He’d gone after Malfoy and showed him his hand — showed him his hand like a lovesick fool.

And Malfoy had left again anyway.

 _I won’t be made a fool by Malfoy,_ Harry thinks, clenching his jaw, _ever again._


	3. Immovable Object

One would think getting shot down by Malfoy would help Harry move on.

_ Well, one would be wrong,  _ Harry thinks wryly. He’s in his gym clothes tonight. Ready to go for a run around the neighbourhood. He catches his reflection in the tall mirror in his foyer and shudders. He looks like someone who’s slapped together the three oldest, most frayed pieces of clothing of his wardrobe, and called it a sports outfit. To be fair, that’s… an accurate description of what Harry did. It’s not like he’s an experienced runner. He’s not even an amateur. The last time Harry had run, Hogwarts had been under siege and he’d been chased by Death Eaters.

Yet, needs must. A bloke’s got to blow off steam, and jogging is better than the alternative, which is to do something rash and front-page-worthy such as getting blindly drunk and being photographed kissing a Muggle in a Soho back alley.

His attempt at running is pathetic, he realises, halfway through his itinerary. He’s drenched in sweat after barely a mile. His thin t-shirt is stuck to his back; his calves are burning. He’d wanted to clear his head for a while, stop the loop of thoughts about Malfoy, but the running has somehow made it worse. His mind is caught in a loop of details, playing back a variety of versions of the same conversation, picturing mini-scenarios where Harry would burst in on Malfoy and deliver a self-righteous speech that would leave Malfoy quivering in apology and begging for mercy at Harry’s feet.

‘Cause Malfoy at Harry’s feet is… something to consider.

Still, Harry’s not sure what Malfoy should apologise for. Malfoy doesn’t owe Harry anything, after all. Quite the contrary. If anyone needs to apologise, it’s Harry. 

Apologise, or at least…  _ reciprocate. _

And that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? Harry’s beginning to suspect he blames Malfoy for not letting him act on all the ideas that Malfoy himself planted in Harry’s head.

Ideas that could potentially ruin Harry’s life.

Harry slows down his pace and wipes his forehead. He presses a hand to his side to stop the beginnings of a stitch to spread. It’s getting dark outside, the warm-grey twilight of summer in London. It’s a quiet street, and the rumble of the city is low and faraway, disturbed only by the occasional cab gliding by. Harry takes a deep breath and considers his previous thought. 

The fact that his life is now bisected into before and after Malfoy’s mind-boggling blowjob.

He’d given in to Malfoy’s advances without worrying about the consequences, and the fact that his latest sexual exploits hadn’t been splashed all over the wizarding tabloids should be a ringing testimony to Malfoy’s trustworthiness. Granted, one could wonder what a thief’s trustworthiness is worth to begin with. Yet Harry would take Malfoy’s discretion over the giggling confessions his ex-partners had made to the press any time. In the past, most of the girls that Harry had snogged had run to the tabloids, sometimes barely out of Harry’s flat. And for weeks after, there would be a litany of mortifyingly trashy articles.  _ Hung Like A Norwegian Ridgeback, _ one rag had claimed.  _ Harry Potter Likes It Hot, _ another paper had stated, whatever that meant. Harry has to admit he’d kept a fearful eye on the headlines in the days after the ‘Cloakroom Incident,’ as he likes to demurely refer to it. He’d only relaxed when two weeks had gone by and no scandal had broken. His anxiety had only given room to other concerns, more personal this time. 

Because he can’t deny that he’d enjoyed Malfoy’s initiative. He’d enjoyed it both times. He’d thrilled at the touch of those strong, broad hands. He’d shivered at the feel of Malfoy’s erection frotting against his own under layers of clothes. The sameness of Malfoy’s body against his had felt so right, Harry wonders how he’d never considered… doing that before. He’d loved kissing Malfoy, loved the assertive give and take, loved the square jaw and prickly stubble he’d felt under his palm. 

He can’t believe he ever thought girls were enough for him.

It’s like a levee has broken, and Harry’s left with both a sense of exhilarated yearning and abysmal dread.

He’s beginning to suspect he might not be entirely straight, and that just wasn’t the plan. Wasn’t the plan  _ at all. _ He can still hear Uncle Vernon’s scandalised voice whenever there were mentions of queer people in the news.  _ Deviants, _ he’d snarl.  _ Thank goodness there are none of those people in Little Whinging, _ Aunt Petunia would chime in, closing her arms around Dudley like a hen protecting her chick.  _ What would they do to Ickle Diddykins? _ The memories leave Harry feeling cold and slightly sick. Whatever he actually is, he doesn’t feel like a deviant. And certainly not as someone who’d ever look at Dudley with longing in his mind. So why do the ignorant words of his aunt and uncle still hurt, after all these years?

Besides, Harry’s supposed to be Wizarding Britain’s Golden Boy. The Chosen One. The righteous war hero who gets to defeat the bad guy, walk off into the sunset, and fall madly in love.

Fall madly in love with a  _ girl, _ that is. Obviously.

Well, a fine hero Harry makes. He snorts at the thought, lifting the bottom of his humid t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his neck. Jesus, he’s unfit. And it’s not just that. He’s a failure throughout. He couldn’t go through with Auror training; he couldn’t sustain a relationship with Ginny; he can’t seem to be able to keep a girl, hung as a Ridgeback as he is. He has no bloody clue what a suitable career path would be for the Chosen One, and so he solves his dilemma by picking none. He’s struggled to accept the fact that he might just be a rich, famous man whose sole purpose in life is to select the causes he wants to give his money to. A idler. A layabout. All terms the British press have called him in the past. 

But they’ve never called him  _ queer  _ yet. And Harry’s torn about that too. Because on the one hand, he yearns to go and find out what it means, what it  _ actually  _ means for him. The call of it is so strong it almost chokes him. But on the other hand… he’s just not ready yet. He’s not come to terms with it. He’s not taken the full breadth of that discovery and its implications. He’s worked so hard to curate his public image since the war. The news of his… non-heterosexuality would be the scoop of the decade, and he can picture the front pages from here. Sure, some higher-quality papers would praise Harry’s stand for representation, but he knows the wizarding press well enough: the majority would print articles all more outrageous and demeaning than the next. 

He doesn’t want to be a symbol. Not anymore.

He just wants to be himself.

Whoever that might be.

And he wants to hang on to the novelty of his desires for a moment longer. He wants to find out what it means in his own time, on his own terms.

Harry turns a corner, five minutes away from his flat, when he hears raised voices. It’s a peculiar sound in Harry’s rather posh neighbourhood, where the houses are expensive and the upper lips are stiff. Harry’s never gone to the trouble of getting to know his neighbours, but he assumes most of them would consider yelling and cursing as unforgivably vulgar. He stops to listen, slides a look around the property wall lining the corner. A hundred feet from here, silhouetted in the falling sunlight, two men are arguing. Or… is it a fight? Harry can’t make out what they’re saying, but one of them is holding the other by the arm, shaking him. The man in his grip is pulling and kicking. Trying to get away.

It doesn’t look like an argument. It looks like fucking assault. 

“Oi! YOU!” Harry bellows before he can stop to think. Heart hammering, he rushes down the street, hand finding his wand in his joggers’ back pocket. As he comes nearer, he catches snatches of sound, words like,  _ trying to fleece me, you miserable little thief, should bloody call the police, _ coming from the mouth of the aggressor — a stout, middle-aged man with greying hair and an impressive handlebar moustache. His victim is a much younger man in skinny jeans and a leather jacket, a beanie pulled low on his head. “It’s a misunderstanding, good sir, let me explain—” he’s saying in a familiar upper-class drawl. The sound of it makes Harry skid to a halt. The man is pale-skinned and thin-faced, his long legs and tall frame brought out by his form-fitting clothes, and, as the bigger man jostles him again, the beanie falls off his head, revealing a swathe of shockingly white blond hair.

“Malfoy?!” 

Both attacker and victim — though Harry’s starting to realise that maybe he’s got the roles mixed up — whirl around at Harry’s stunned question.

The middle-aged man gives Harry a doubtful once-over, taking in the worn, sweaty t-shirt, the old joggers with baggy knees. His face turns redder at the sight. Harry’s simultaneously reminded of Uncle Vernon and an inflated toad.

“You know this man?” the moustachioed man spits. 

“I— Yes,” Harry says with a decisive nod. Next to the big man, Malfoy’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’m sorry he bothered you, sir. That’s my cousin, er—” Harry’s gaze flicks between Malfoy and the man, thinking on his feet, “—Patrick. Patrick Malfoy.” He glowers at Malfoy, while surreptitiously pulling him out of the man’s grip. He winds a supportive arm around Malfoy’s shoulders and adds with a chiding shake of his finger: “Patrick, you incorrigible prat. Getting drinks at the pub without me.”

“Drinks at the pub?! He was picking my pocket while I was unlocking my front door!” the man bursts, but Harry doesn’t miss the way his voice catches hesitantly at the end of his sentence, the way he glances at Malfoy with a mixture of wariness and distaste.

“Ah, yes,” Harry says with a thoughtful nod. “He does tend to do that, see? When he’s sloshed, he thinks every house is his.”

The man turns to Malfoy with a frown. Malfoy gives him the blinking, dignified stare of the deeply drunk, and Harry can’t help but admire how quickly he jumped on board of Harry’s lie. Especially when Malfoy leans more of his weight against Harry in a perfect display of teetering drunkenness. Malfoy’s act is so good, Harry almost expects him to reek of stale beer. But instead, he’s rewarded with a whiff of Malfoy’s cologne and his crisp, clean-laundry scent. The hair on Harry’s arms stands in pleasant anticipation.

“Public inebriation!” The man quivers with offended propriety. “You young people have no shame these days! No respect!” 

“Sorry about that,” Harry murmurs offhandedly as Malfoy pretends to stagger and throws his arm around Harry’s neck, unbalancing him. Harry places his hand in the small of Malfoy’s back. The gesture is supposed to help prop a tipsy cousin upright. It’s not, you know, Harry’s barely-concealed attempt to feel the warmth and softness of Malfoy’s cashmere jumper underneath the leather jacket. A leather jacket which, come to think of it, Harry’d love to discuss with Malfoy if he ever gets a chance.

Harry’s brought back to the moment by the man’s angry huffing and puffing.

“Well, consider yourselves lucky i’m not calling the authorities,” he says. Then, turning to Harry, “Keep your drunk family members in check in the future.” He pats his breast pocket, removes a key, and unlocks the gate to his house. He casts one last glance at Harry. “And maybe start taking care of yourself as well, young man. This is a good neighbourhood. Not a place for walking around looking like a tramp.”

The gate shuts in Harry and Malfoy’s faces.

“What a twat,” Harry says.

“Arse,” Malfoy concurs. 

Harry looks him up and down. “You alright, Malfoy?”

“Of course,” Malfoy says, pushing the hair out of his eyes. Then he pats himself down, stuffs the fallen beanie into his pocket, and announces, “Well. Toodles, Potter. I’ll see you around. Off I go.”

And Malfoy, true to his word, turns on his heel and lopes off. After a second of open-mouthed incredulity, Harry shakes his head and trots after him. 

“Wow. A ‘thank you for helping me out of a pickle’ would be nice.”

Malfoy glances at Harry but doesn’t slow down. “That was very chivalrous of you. I’m still weak at the knees.”

“See, I’m not sure if you’re being honest or sarcastic.”

“Potter, if I rolled my eyes harder right now, I’d injure myself.”

Well, Harry’s had it. Getting shot down for assuming he could establish something of a romantic nature with Malfoy is one thing; getting the shrug off after saving him from actual trouble is an entirely other level of rude. 

So he doesn’t mind acting as rude as Malfoy in return.

“For fuck’s sake, Malfoy,” he grunts, and grabs Malfoy’s shoulder, “can you please slow down?” 

“Ow!” Malfoy folds, hand flying to the place where Harry touched him. He lifts an affronted glare at Harry, but at least he’s stopped trying to flee. Harry notices the way Malfoy is gingerly rubbing his shoulder and arm.

“I’m sorry—” he starts, then remembers Malfoy never thanked him. That shouldn’t put him in the mood to empathise. He schools his features into a more matter-of-fact expression. “Hold on. Did that man hurt you?”

“That man,” Malfoy mutters, “is Archibald Cavendish.”

“And?”

“And, he’s the head of Phoenix Rise Investment, an incredibly wealthy and incredibly shady fund, and he’s so rich he won’t even realise he’s four hundred quid lighter than before meeting me. Four hundred, give or take, I’m making a wild guess, I haven’t checked the contents of his wallet yet.”

The reminder of what Malfoy does for a living shouldn’t feel like a blow to the chest, but it still does, and Harry hates himself a little for it. He grits his teeth. “That’s not what I asked. I asked if you were hurt.”

“What’s it to you, Potter?” Malfoy’s lifted chin is all challenge.

Harry has to clamp his hands under his armpits to refrain from jostling him. “For fuck’s sake, I forget what an infuriating prick you are. Answer me.”

“Fine,” Malfoy huffs. Still holding his upper arm, he opens and closes his hand, testing the movement. Harry can see the muscles clenching in his jaw, the faint sheen of sweat at his brow. “I think he dislocated my shoulder.”

“Fuck. Are you certain?”

“Or— maybe I pulled a muscle.”

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose. “These are not the same things.”

“How would I know? I’m not a fucking Healer, Potter. But it… hurts l when I try to move.”

“Now is not the time to be a bloody drama queen.”

“Alright, maybe it doesn’t hurt, per se. It’s just… very uncomfortable.”

“Let me see,” Harry says, moving close.

Malfoy stills. “I’ll take care of it,” he hisses. “It’s not the first time.”

Harry lets the implication hang in the air, before trying another tac. “Alright. Fine. Come on.” He gestures to Malfoy, and starts to walk.

“What…” Malfoy doesn’t move for a long moment, before Harry hears his footsteps hurrying after him. “...are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to mine.”

“What?!”

Harry looks back at Malfoy. “Yeah, Malfoy. I’m taking you home. I live a short way from here. You’re in no state to Apparate, anyway. So I say, let’s take some curry to go, get you some rest, and we’ll see how to fix your shoulder. No strings attached. You can leave anytime.”

“Come to yours?” Malfoy asks, one eyebrow up. “Are you coming on to me? Because if you are, your sense of timing is truly abysmal.”

“It’s not a pick-up line. I’m serious, Malfoy. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Malfoy narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Why? Because, believe it or not, I’m a decent person. I can tell you’re shaken. You’ve just been in an unpleasant situation. I’m giving you a safe place to check that you’re alright. And maybe,” Harry adds, “if you weren’t such a dick, you’d just say ‘thank you, Potter, for saving my arse,’ and fucking accept my hospitality when I offer it.”

In the silence that falls between them, Malfoy keeps pace with Harry.

“You didn’t ‘save my arse,’” he mutters eventually. “You saved, like, maybe half a buttcheek.”

Harry has to turn his face away to hide his grin. “As far as I’m concerned, even that fraction of your arse is worth saving.” They’ve just rounded the corner of his street, and he can see his building from here. “What kind of curry do you like? There’s that little place I like by the Tube station… Wait,” he stops, and Malfoy comes to a halt next to him, “do you like curry?” Doubt seizes him. “Do you even… know what curry is?”

Malfoy’s mouth twitches like he’s secretly amused. “Good lord, Potter. At least warn me if you’re going to be this awkward all night.”

This time, Harry laughs out loud. “Hey, I’m trying, alright? If I’m going to invite you for dinner, I might as well make sure you appreciate the food.”

“Of course I know what curry is, Potter. And I like it. You’re just not paying for it.”

“How so?”

Malfoy pulls a shiny black leather wallet from his sleeve with the swift flourish of a Muggle magician. 

A  _ stolen, _ shiny black leather wallet.

“My treat. Or should I say, Archibald Cavendish’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was short, I hear you say. Where's the smut?  
> Do not despair. Smut - and curry, Draco being a drama queen, late-night conversations, and red wine (not necessarily in that order) - coming soon :)


End file.
